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Rainier's Articles


PS3/X360/PC Preview - 'Assassin's Creed II'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2009

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Release Date: November 17, 2009

The first Assassin's Creed left me a bit cold. It was a visually stunning game with silky-smooth controls and lots of interesting ideas, but it also had enough flaws to be solidly average at best and tedious at worst. I was understandably hesitant when I went to see Assassin's Creed 2 during E3. Fortunately, Assassin's Creed 2 appears to have been designed entirely to counter every almost every criticism leveled against the original game. From the moment the demo began, I found that every

PS3/X360/PC Preview - 'BioShock 2'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2009

BioShock was one of the more interesting games to hit in the past few years. A pseudo-sequel to the cult PC hit System Shock, it combined survival horror and first-person shooter elements in an interesting and exciting way.

PS3/X360 Preview - 'Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2009

Genre: Action Role-Playing
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Release Date: September 15, 2009

It's hard to make a good superhero game but nearly impossible to make a good superhero team game. Characters like Superman, Spider-Man or The Hulk are hard enough to make work when the entire game is focused on them, but trying to put a bunch of heroes into a single game usually leads to iffy results, such as the lackluster Justice League games. The one notable exception to this has been the Activision superhero titles, X-Men: Legends and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. The two games

PC Preview - 'Armed Assault'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2006

Genre: First-Person Shooter
Publisher: TBA
Developer: Bohemia Interactive Studio
Release Date: Q3 2006

When you look at the first-person shooter genre as a whole, they can largely be broken up into gameplay that is either based on strict linearity (heavy use of hallways, such as Half-Life or Doom 3) or the somewhat less linear collection of larger, more open areas (e.g., Ghost Recon series, Half-Life 2). The original Operation Flashpoint came out on the PC a few years ago and was critically successful for two reasons. Firstly, the title absolutely oozed atmosphere, from the well-written yet totally

PS3/X360/PC Preview - 'Just Cause 2'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2009

Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Developer: Avalanche Studios
Release Date: TBA 2010

The original Just Cause had some big ideas. It thrust gamers into a gigantic tropical sandbox and invited them to tinker with some interesting gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately, glitches and an overall lack of variety kept the game from being anything above mediocre. There was the potential for a truly unique game, but it was buried under the repetitive gameplay. Fortunately, Just Cause 2 looks to be anything but repetitive. In our brief demo at E3, we got a glimpse of a handful of the game's

NDS/Wii/PC Preview - 'World of Zoo'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2009

World of Zoo takes players beyond the fences and into their own zoo, allowing them to care for and build relationships with numerous animals through hands-on interactive gameplay.

Xbox 360 Preview - 'Enchanted Arms'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2006

Enchanted Arms

Genre: RPG
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: From Software
Release Date: August 2006

Come On, What Was Wrong with [eM] -eNCHANT arM-?

Horse armor and wizards' towers won't keep Oblivion players saddled up forever. Well, maybe they will, but at some point, you'll need to take a breather and find something other than shutting down Oblivion Gates to do with your Xbox 360 role-playing time. Excellent RPG alternatives remain scarce, much as they always were on the original Xbox, so it was disappointing to find the Enchanted Arms demo station somewhat under-mobbed next to the tangle of squirming E3 attendees trying

PS3/X360/PC Preview - 'Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2006

Genre: Historical Tactical Shooter
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Gearbox Software
Release Date: Q1 2007

Brothers in Arms is one of the great things to come out of the military game boom, and certainly one of the franchises that keeps driving massive demand for World War II shooters. This spring, the latest entry in the franchise, Hell's Highway, hits the XBox 360, PS3, and PC in full 720p high-resolution. This is the kind of game that will move 360s, make you think twice about the PS3, and send you shopping for a new top-of-the-line graphics card. Ubisoft displayed the

NDS Preview - 'Elite Beat Agents'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2006

Genre: Puzzle/Rhythm
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Inis
Release Date: Q4 2006

With companies like Konami and Harmonix making rhythm/music games popular in the 'States, we've begun to see lots more than the latest Dance Dance crazes coming our way. We've had taiko drums, regular drums, virtual karaoke bars, guitars, and now ... well, now we've got touch-tapping.

It's really fun touch-tapping, though.

Elite Beat Agents is the localized pedigree of a Japanese DS game by the name of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, in which male cheerleaders are summoned everywhere they can be to solve the problems of the world through dance.

Wii Preview - 'Red Steel'

by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under E3 - Post - E3 2006

Genre: First-Person Shooter
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Paris
Release Date: TBA

Nintendo has been pimping Red Steel unusually hard for it to be a third-party title, especially a third-party FPS with a Western developer. It's because Red Steel embodies Nintendo's promise that the Wii's games are going to cater to every possible type of gamer, including the aggressive, predominantly male demographic of FPS fans that felt distinctly ignored by the GameCube. Red Steel is not just an FPS, either, but almost a tech demo that shows third-party developers just what kind of an experience they can create